Four main principles:
- Be careful with portion size
- Drink water (herbal tea may be included as water intake)
- No starchy carbohydrates
- No sugar and no alcohol
Other tips:
- Chew food thoroughly
- Avoid processed foods like take-way food
- Avoid toxins (the fat cells want to store them and will not let go of them – so the body resists against shedding fat cells)
- Use coloured salt such as Himalayan, rather than white salt
- Use stevia instead of sugar
- Keep sauces to a minimum
- Drink between meals, not with meals. Eating and drinking at the same time interferes with digestion.
- Avoid caffeine as much as possible. If you must drink coffee, limit it to 1-2 cups per day. Green tea (only 4% caffeine), and herbal teas are acceptable.
- Eat lean meats.
- Don’t eat the same foods every day – vary your menus.
- Exercise every day – at least 30 minutes cardio and 20 minutes weight bearing.
- Don’t give up if you stop losing weight.
Weight loss eating plan
Follow a low glycemic index (GI) diet. This is a low carbohydrate diet. The principle is to keep blood sugar levels at a moderate level, without spikes and falls, because high blood sugar ultimately results in fat storage – whether it be in the liver or elsewhere in the body.
You can combine protein and fats with low GI (good) carbs without a raising blood sugar. But here are the thing that will give spikes in blood sugar: refined carbs (bad carbs) such as sugar, white flour, rice etc, and/or combining fat with moderate or bad carbs. (Moderate carbs are legumes for example, which are fine to eat as long as you don’t combine them with fat.)
What is the glycemic index?
The glycemic index (GI) is a value used to measure how much specific foods increase blood sugar levels. Foods are classified as low, medium, or high glycemic foods and ranked on a scale of 0–100. The lower the GI of a specific food, the less it may affect your blood sugar levels.
Here are the three GI ratings:
Low: 55 or less
Medium: 56–69
High: 70 or above
Foods high in refined carbs and sugar are digested more quickly and often have a high GI, while foods high in protein, fat, or fiber typically have a low GI. Foods that contain no carbs are not assigned a GI and include meat, fish, poultry, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, and oils.
Benefits of a low GI diet
Following a low glycemic diet may offer several health benefits, including:
- Improved blood sugar regulation, therefore prevention of diabetes
- Prevention of heart disease
- Increased weight loss.
- Reduced LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
- Improved fertility levels
How does the low carb diet work?
Carbohydrates with a moderate to high GI raise you blood sugar levels. When the blood sugar is raised beyond a certain point, insulin is released. When insulin is released, the blood sugar levels start to fall because the body has started converting the excess sugars into glycogen. This is a form of glucose that gets stored in the liver. If it is not used it is stored as fat in the fat cells. Low GI carbohydrates on the other hand, while still giving us energy, do not add to the storage we have in the liver, and the glycogen gets used up. After the glycogen gets used up, the body starts using the fat for fuel, and weight loss will occur.
The protein, fat and low carb meal
Protein and fat have no GI, so can be included in the diet. A very strict low-carb diet would be to eat only protein, good fats combined with low GI carbs. Meals would be made up of these foods:
| Low GI Carbs (“Good” Carbs) | Protein foods & good fats |
| Alfalfa sprouts Celery Cucumber Tomato Radish Lettuce Cauliflower Broccoli Eggplant Cabbage Capsicum Carrots Spinach Squash Onions Leeks Rocket Zucchini Mushrooms Green beans Lemon Grapefruit | Meat Poultry Fish Eggs Butter Cheese Coconut oil Olive oil Avocado Nuts – almonds, walnuts, macadamia (not cashews) Milk and natural yoghurt |
The Moderate carb meal
Weight loss will still occur if a meal consists of moderate carbohydrates. However, fat must not be included in this meal because the insulin produced from the moderate cabs will give our bodies an opportunity to absorb any fats in the meal. In this meal we can combine moderate carbs with low carbs.
| Moderate carbs | Low cabs |
| Whole oats Barley Quinoa Rye Basmati rice Dried beans Lentils Sweet potato (gold) Chickpeas Pumpernickel or sour dough rye bread (1 slice per day) Fresh fruit (only certain fruits: apple, apricot, berries, cherry, grapefruit, lemon/lime, nectarine, orange, papaya, peach, pear, plum, rock melon) Dried fruits (only some – dates, apricots) | Alfalfa sprouts Celery Cucumber Tomato Radish Lettuce Cauliflower Broccoli Eggplant Cabbage Capsicum Spinach Squash Onions Leeks Rocket Zucchini Mushrooms Green beans Lemon Grapefruit |
Golden rule
When eating a protein meal or anything that contains fats, you must wait at least 5 hours before eating moderate carbs, or vice versa.
Why the time interval when swapping from a carb meal to a protein meal or protein meal to a carb meal? You must wait for one meal to be fully digested, before eating the other type. If there is undigested fat from the previous meal, and you snack on moderate carbs before the fat is digested, it will raise blood sugar levels.
This is a basic principle for health anyway – do not eat in between meals. Allow the digestive system to complete its work.
Examples of high GI (greater than 70) to be avoided (‘bad’ carbs)
White potatoes (78)
Watermelon (72)
Honey (73)
Doughnuts (75)
White Rice (89) (Basmati however is a moderate carb)
Breakfast cereals (76)
White bread (71)
Pumpkin (75)
Instant oatmeal (83)
Rice pasta (78)
Parsnips (97)
Corn syrup (73)
Table sugar (75)
Soft drinks and fruit juice (74)
Puffed rice (78)
Rice milk (86)
Raisins (64)
And the obvious: chips and crisps white flour and anything made from it, biscuits, crackers, pastry, cakes, jams, jellies, sports drinks, sweets, ice-cream, sweetened yoghurt, sweetened tinned fruit, artificial sweeteners
Stevia is a sweetener option for people with diabetes trying to manage their blood sugar because it has no effect on insulin levels. Stevia has a glycemic index and glycemic load of zero. It is a herb and does not have the problems of artificial sweeteners. But make sure it is pure Stevia. A good brand is Nirvana.